.send
Is .send a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.send is contested: 3 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. They are Innovation Service, NextGEN TLDs and Link Freedom Group.
Who is applying, and what they run today
One of the three already run TLDs, 225K names between them. Link Freedom Group and NextGEN TLDs run none.
Will names sell?
A catchy action word for payments, transfers, and file-sharing tools, but most serious projects would treat it as a side domain, not home.
Last round the AI scored the 2012 strings blind to their fate. Strings it scored 60 or more hold a median 27,168 names today; those under 30, a median of 30. .send’s closest 2012 strings hold .pay 882 and .call 2.
The nearest 2012 strings, and how many names each holds today
The closest 2012 string, .pay, held 882 names, June 2026. .call held 2. Chosen by AI from every string in the 2012 round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet exactly: a one-syllable English imperative verb for a money-or-thing-in-motion action, wanted by payments and platform giants as a call-to-action namespace whose value depends on owning a verb consumers already say rather than on any definable category of registrants.
Also a bare communications verb positioned as a do-this-now namespace for telecom and messaging players, and like the target it only pays off if the operator can convert a universal action word into branded destinations instead of selling it to an industry.
- .mail
Same underlying job — dispatching something to someone — and the same buyer profile of messaging and delivery incumbents, but it reads primarily as a noun with entrenched postal and inbox associations, so its identity pull is narrower than an open-ended action verb.
Where they meet elsewhere
NextGEN TLDs and Link Freedom Group face each other in 7 contests this round, .send included.
- Link Freedom Group × NextGEN TLDs
- Link Freedom Group × Innovation Service
- NextGEN TLDs × Innovation Service
fintech and payments startups, crypto transfer and wallet products, and file-sharing or messaging tools that want an action-oriented call-to-action domain (pay.send, files.send style)
What a .send domain is
.send is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our AI & tech category. 3 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .send domain extension real yet?
.send is not yet a domain extension you can register: nothing resolves under it, and no registrar sells names in it. It is a string applicants have put forward in the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, the process that decides whether it becomes one.
When can you buy a .send domain?
You can’t yet. A .send name can only be registered once the string is delegated (added to the DNS root) and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .send was .pay, delegated on 10 August 2016.
Is .send a real TLD?
Not yet. .send is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .send is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- 2 applicants · first recordedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · now confirmedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · first recordedLink Freedom Group
“ISL2626T-T93227 · Innovation Service Limited · primary · contention set 2026-208 LFGL2683T-T58902 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · primary · contention set 2026-208 NTG2671T-T94231 · NextGEN TLDs GmbH · primary · contention set 2026-208”ICANN
“.send · AI & Tech · “Shift gears, change direction.””Link Freedom Group
- Band chosen: 30-49, usable but limited. The string is a clean, universally understood English verb tied to real product categories: money movement, file transfer, messaging, and email infrastructure. By analogy, verb and action TLDs such as .link and .click have tended to fill on price and redirect-style utility rather than primary-identity use, while noun-category strings like .app achieved standard status only with an anchor ecosystem behind them; .send has no such anchor in the verified facts. It sits below the 50-69 band because there is no evidence of a category (payments, transfer tools) where a .send address is the expected primary identity, and adoption would need explaining to customers and investors alike; it sits above the 10-29 band because the word maps directly onto multiple durable, well-funded product categories, so genuine primary-identity use by transfer-focused products is plausible within 5 years, not merely vanity registration. The applicant is Link Freedom Group, which filed more than 300 strings in the ICANN 2026 round and published its list ahead of Reveal Day; its catalog files this string under AI & Tech with the tagline 'Shift gears, change direction.', which reads closer to a mobility theme than to the transfer/payments meaning most buyers would attach to the word, so positioning at launch is uncertain. A portfolio applicant of that breadth implies registrar-channel distribution is plausible but marketing focus per string is unknown. Main market uncertainty: whether fintech and crypto transfer products, the best-fit buyers, will adopt an action-verb TLD as a primary brand identity rather than a redirect or campaign domain.